Actor and comedian Tim Allen revealed in a new interview that he seriously considered suicide while serving time in federal prison for a drug trafficking conviction more than four decades ago.
Allen, 72, opened up about his darkest moments during an appearance on Howie Mandel’s “Howie Mandel Does Stuff” podcast, released Wednesday. The “Home Improvement” and “Toy Story” star reflected on his arrest, time behind bars, and how losing his father at a young age set him on a path of self-destruction.
“I was just a kid,” Allen said, recalling his 1978 drug bust. “It was just like in a freaking movie [where it was] in a locker. If you want to get into the details of it, I was treated just as badly as people of color. I was pigeonholed because I was a light-skinned guy from an upper-middle-class family.”
Allen’s father, Gerald Dick, was killed by a drunk driver in 1964 when Allen was just 11 years old — a loss he said contributed to his later behavior. The comedian was arrested at a Michigan airport for possessing more than a pound of cocaine and pleaded guilty to felony drug trafficking charges. Under the Rockefeller drug laws at the time, Allen faced the possibility of life in prison.
“They wanted to stop drugs like they’re trying to do now by increasing the sentence or putting people in prison. It didn’t work then,” Allen said.
Behind bars, Allen used dark humor to cope but admitted to Mandel that suicide was a “serious consideration” for him. “I was going, ‘I’m going to kill myself,’” he recalled. “The comedy part of me goes, ‘OK, how are we going to do this?’ My comedy part is always funny at the weirdest times.”
Allen said one older inmate on the prison bus gave him blunt advice: “Just shut up, grow a beard and stop asking questions.”
The “Santa Clause” star ultimately served two years and four months of a three-to-seven-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone, Minnesota. He also cooperated with authorities, naming other drug dealers, which helped reduce his sentence.
Allen told Mandel he did not make friends inside prison and that two men who had supported him during his incarceration were both shot to death shortly after being released.
Paroled on June 12, 1981, Allen rebuilt his life, returning to stand-up comedy and later landing his breakout role on “Home Improvement” in 1991. He has been sober for more than 25 years and has spoken openly about how prison taught him to “live day by day” and “shut up and play the game.”
“It was the first time ever I did what I was told,” Allen told Marc Maron in a previous interview. “And I learned literally how to live day by day. And I learned how to shut up. You definitely want to learn how to shut up.”
The post Tim Allen Reveals He Contemplated Suicide During Federal Prison Sentence for Drug Trafficking appeared first on Real News Now.
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